Today I am making a slow cooker spaghetti dish. I found 2 bottle of Ragu deep in my cupboard. There was a date on each of the lids: AUG 16 07. That's all. It did not say "Best by" or "Sell by" or "Use by".
I tested the screw on lid...the "button" in the middle was depressed. If it had popped up and down with the pressure of my finger, I would have not hesitated to through it out immediately.
So...since the seal was good, and since it was glass (I have read that canned tomato sauce, if kept for long periods of time, will get some of the resinous coating of the inside of the can absorbed into the food.)I felt completely 100 % confident to use this product, even though today's date is 2 and 1/2 years past the date on the jar lid.
I once saw a show on BYUTV that had a woman who was a food science professor say she opened and ate a can of vegatables that was 12 years old...it was not harmful. The flavor and nutritional value were somewhat diminished but it was edible and provided needed calries. Of course, she said, if the can was bulging, or if the lid was not depressed (that is, if you could push the top of the can down and feel it pop up again)...then you would definitely not eat it. Or if you opened it and it smelled bad, you would not eat it.
I found a great article on this by Jane Brody(famous nutritionist, author) and posted the link on the side bar.
No comments:
Post a Comment